[_wt8k]

The reason why I applied to Cornell, CMU, and UPenn was that they all have strong PL departments.

CMU offers an undergraduate PL concentration where you learn FP and constructive math: https://csd.cs.cmu.edu/academics/undergraduate/principles_of... I believe I really would have benefitted from this.

The fact is that being a prestigious or elite school often goes hand-in-hand with having good professors and research. There is a certain unfairness, but it seems inherent that a "better" university would naturally have more resources and more professors would come there. But, we should have more top-level universities to accommodate more people. After all, top colleges are always claiming that they have to turn down qualified applicants every year.

[jac241]

It'd probably be worth shooting professors in those departments at those schools an email to try to set up research with them during your summers. There's at least some chance they can take you on or there is a research program you can be a part of. You're motivated and interested in those topics so I suspect you will be able to teach yourself what a course at one of those schools would have taught you.

[all_factz]

Oh for sure, I'm not arguing that you don't get better opportunities at those "name" schools. You very likely do.

I'm just saying that that's in itself something of a problem. Like, I'm angry about the concentration of academic "worthiness" in a select number of institutions. I'd like us to work on reversing that trend, making education more meritocratic, decentralized and accommodating.

For example: it's expensive as hell to house students on a campus like Harvard, Yale, etc. The benefits of doing so are furthermore unclear. In much of the world, you live at home during your university years. Or with roommates in a city. Re-centering university life from these inaccessible campuses and into cities would do a lot to lower the barrier and cost of entry, IMO.